Thursday, March 29, 2007

F**k The Children

The other day I was reading an article in The Hartford Courant. It was about a bill before the Connecticut legislature that would allow for controled amounts of marijuana for people suffering from certain illnesses that the drug has been shown to help. Montel Williams, who suffers from MS, gave a moving speech about marijuana's ability to get him through his day. I would link the article if I had the faintest clue how. (I am not technologically illiterate, but I defnitely move my lips when I read) And then they brought out the people who disagreed with the bill. One of their main arguments- what message does this send the children?

Let me repeat that. This bill is designed to help people with horrible debilitating diseases- AIDS, MS, Cancer and the like- and these people think that little Billy might get the wrong idea so we should scrap the whole thing. "What about the children?" they cry. "Oh, won't someone please think of the children?!?"

Well, my answer is, "Fuck the children." That's right- fuck 'em.

The testicular grandiosity required for you to look some poor bastard who's body is tearing itself apart and say, "No, you cannot have that relief, because my kid might get the wrong idea," truly staggers my mind.

Let me start with the obvious problem. If your kid is so unformed intellectually that the sight of grandma toking up to help with her arthritis makes him decide that pot is a-okay, well, he wasn't going far in this world anyway. You don't need to be straight to work the deep fryer. Indeed, it is probably a hinderance. Your kid either will decide to smoke pot or he won't- just like a hundred other decisions you worry about. This decision will be based on a thousand little things that have a great deal more to do with your parenting than with Montel's doobage habits. Maybe that's what really worries you, but I couldn't care less. Don't drag your parenting hangups into other peoples lives, jerkoff.

My main problem with the argument, though, is that it is intellectually dishonest. Children have become the catchall for dealing with controversial issues. Anything that makes us uncomfortable, we instantly raise the children issue. What will this do to our children? Is it harmful? Will it make them promiscuous, or evil or Jehova's Witnesses? It's an easy out because we all worry on some level about children, about what happens to them. Most all of us have one in our lives, be it one of our own or a relative or a relative of a friend. Mention children and most of us conjure an image of some wide-eyed moon face full of trust and love that we want to protect from the big bad world and it makes us hesitate. But it's all bullshit.

Because you are not really worried that junior's gonna toke up if the bill passes. You're worried because you've lived your whole life believing that pot is bad. You saw "Reefer Madness" in health class or heard some crazed urban legend about some kid becoming a drooling ninny or you're just thinking back to your hazy college days and your embarrassed by the useless little shit you were back then. Or maybe you're realistic enough to recognize the floodgates this could open- that if pot is beneficial to these people, maybe it's not bad enough to warrant being illegal. And if that's the case, what else are we prohibiting that isn't so bad. And maybe we have to rethink the whole war on drugs and that would be hard work and give you headaches. But none of these are good enough arguments, so you invoke the children.

And so I tell you again, "Fuck the children." I say it loud, I say it proud.

Understand, there are legitimate arguments to be made against using marijuana for medicinal purposes. Perhaps you do not feel the benefit outweighs the damage it does. Maybe you think there are safer, universally legal, alternatives that work as well if not better. I am happy to hear these arguments, though I may not agree with them. At least it means you are doing yourself and others the courtesy of formulating a real, well reasoned argument.

Have the decency to leave your little bastards out of the public discourse on sustantive adult issues and in the closet. Safely locked away with a food dish, where they belong.